Rex makes a point about the oil sands that few others get - it's not just about the energy to power our civilization, but also about those who chose that hard, nasty work to provide the energy that makes our way of life possible.

Stan Rogers said it best:

...I could have stayed to take the Dole, but I'm not one of those.
I take nothing free, and that makes me an idiot, I suppose.
So I bid farewell to the Eastern town I never more will see;
But work I must so I eat this dust and breathe refinery.
Oh I miss the green and the woods and streams and I don't like cowboy clothes;
But I like being free and that makes me an idiot I suppose.
So come all you fine young fellows who've been beaten to the ground.
This western life's no paaradise, but it's better than lying down.
Oh, the streets aren't clean, and there's nothing green, and the hills are dirty brown,
But the government Dole will rot your soul back there in your home town.
So bid farewell to the Eastern town you never more will see.
There's self-respect and a steady cheque in this refinery.
You will miss the green and the woods and streams and the dust will fill your nose.
But you'll be free, and just like me, an idiot, I suppose.

Amen. Thank God for all the idiots out there in Alberta - they're the engine that keeps this country (and increasingly, our American neighbours) up and running.

"Rex Murphy Should Be At Fox News"

And FOX News should be in Canada !!!

Thanks for the link. I didn't have to stoop and go to CBC. Rex sure has a way with words...an erudite Andy Rooney.

Channel 152 in Halifax Joe

Re: Posted by: Joe Molnar at March 4, 2009 10:11 AM

Y'know if that ever somehow came to pass I could see our local leftist windbags protesting that.

And I could also see the CRTC giving serious consideration to shutting them down because of it.

I meant a Canadian Bureau with conservative Canadian voices.

(if that's possible to find) outside of Kate McMillan, Kathy Shaidle, or Connie Fournier, or Wendy Sullivan but sadly only all internet.

Corporate Canadian MSM is leftist and corrupt, how else could have Chretien Liberals get away with governing malfeasance for a decade unless the Canadian MSM not be willfully blind to the corruption.

I wonder if the vid can be sent to anyone at Fox news? Someone that could do something with it.

Corporate Canadian MSM is going bankrupt,unless the Gov't allows foreign ownership. Watching Maude Barlow's head explode at that thought would be something to see.

Rex is quite simply the best. His intellect cuts like a scalpel and misses no fat.

"Do Americans want "clean" oil from dirty regimes, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, or do they want "dirty" oil from a clean regime such as Canada? That is Washington's multi-trillion-dollar question."

Diane Francis poses a moral dilemma for Holier than Thou crowds

http://tinyurl.com/bhk9tc

Great thought Karl. I bet there would be good uptake on that if it fell into the right hands.

Murphy is funny, clever, and very articulate.

Why don't we just give all of the CBC's budget allocation to Rex Murphy and see what he can do with it?

Why are displays of reason and honesty in the MSM shocking when we hear them ?
" Hey look here; I found a MSM talking head NOT being a nanny state tool"

National Geographic will be genuinely shocked by Rex's expert carving.
National Geographic's "Mother Gia's wounded breast" crap mirrors every single MSM news source in Canada.

National Geographic should return to their roots , peaceful topless jungle dweller hotties in grass skirts eating 3 inch white grubs served on giant leaves.
That stuff kills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htimBdLg6es
Go Rex!

Rex Murphy, the one faint spark of hope in the soot cloud that is the CBC.

I wonder if they hide his coffee cup when he's not looking.

Although not a fan of Mr. Murphy am pleasantly surprised with his report and simply dumbfounded that CBC aired it. Did read the National Geographic article and found the pertinent facts were reported. The total area of oil sands (aprox 54,000 sq.mi.), the area of oil sands mineable(1336 sq.mi.) and the total area being mined(150 sq.mi.). The propogandist Hudema, and Goebbels acolyte, from the eco-Nazi group Greenpeace has stated that an area the size of Florida (65,795 sq.mi.) has been strip-mined for oil, this story was carried by all media as fact. As was the death of 500 ducks that do not follow the laws of physics and sink through oil.

Wow - thank you for that Stan Rogers quote. I had never heard that before. Poor Stan. A few years ago, the Confederation Centre in Chtown put on a heavily-taxpayer-funded summer-long tribute to Mr. Rogers. I wonder why that song was not featured.

Rex rocks! Why he does not have his own O'Reilly-style show I will never know!

Check Rex Murphy's profile through google.
He is a very smart man.
Too bad we don't have more like him.

Reminds me of Colonel Jessup's speech toward the end of "A Few Good Men": "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it." Though I think he supposed to be a villain.

Well, if we're going to have a FOX Canada they we should get Charles Adler, Andrew Coyne, and Rex Murphy. That'd be AWESOME!

I would also like to see Dave Rutherford and someone like Deborah Grey on a Fox Canada. Monte Solberg would be a great addition as well.

We can dream, can't we??

@ Soccermom - "YES...WE...CAN!!!

Lol, sorry for the Obama quote.

Mansbridge to goat obama into saying something negative on the oil sands backfired on MANSBRIDGE.
Obama has admitted that the coal generating plants is worse off than the oil sands.
NOVA SCOTIA HAS THE TARPITS and CALIFORNIA has tar oil.
The reason MANSBRIDGE and others attack the oil-sands is because the PM lives in Alberta and anything connected to him is evil.
Now Kate, do you really think that the bloc ndp and the liberals CBC etc would have attacked Quebec, ONTARIO or the Maritimes had they the oil-sands.
Strange, they attack the oil sands and not the coal generating plants in Ontario.
Rex Murphy must have seen the destruction of the oil-sands and no revenues going to the federal government to keep the country running to say something.

Nat Geo? I can remember when it was run by a bunch of white, boring, rich, right wing old farts who one fine issue, turned it over to to their up and coming white, boring, sanctimonious, rich, left wing, environmentally sensitive, politically correct, young fart progeny and that was it, subscription wise.

It's best to leave Rex where he is. He's reaching the audience that needs to hear this stuff. If he went to a conservative outlet, he'd be preaching to the choir. Even if only a few greens actually stop and consider these common sense words, it will be worth having him on CBC. Let's hope he doesn't get canned, like Glen Beck.

There's a Stan Rogers festival every year in Canso NS. My brother-in-law goes every year. It's not my usual kind of music, but it's probably a great show.

correction "goad" not goat

Kate, you see the msm was hoping that after all those years with the liberals in government corruption and all, and the msm silence on the matter would make you forget; they manipulate so much that you can see right through them to the point that you and other bloggers have taken over for the innocent manipulate canadians who have no clue what's going- prevented by the liberals protectionist MSM.

Rex Murphy must sense that the public is angry towards the CBC for their constant lies and betrayal. It is so bad that it has taken the american MSM to do the job for the canadian MSM.

Imagine that Kate, our prime minister through the american MSM has reached the world news.

Watch Fox News live here.

Somebody else posted this link earlier this week in reader tips.

Unfortunately Nat Geo long ago joined the ranks of the Club Of Rome conspiracy along with WWF etc.
It has become a propaganda outlet propagating as much BS as the Goracles sci-fi movie.
They falsely reported shrinking mountain glaciers in ther Himalayas which were actually growing and even have ventured into anti-gun propaganda.
The simple fact none of these handwringers disclose is that Gaia poluted that area by creating the OIL SANDS ab initio.....they were not created by neither EXXON nor Merlin the magician.
The eco-freaks seek not so much to protect the environment as to turn the lights out....not just opposing drilling ANYWHERE but even object to their holy grail wind turbines. They oppose Nuke power generation because it would keep the lights on. Lights out is their real goal and mass murder (on a scale unimaginable).

"Do Americans want "clean" oil from dirty regimes, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, or do they want "dirty" oil from a clean regime such as Canada? That is Washington's multi-trillion-dollar question."

Diane Francis poses a moral dilemma for Holier than Thou crowds

http://tinyurl.com/bhk9tc

and no counts the cost of planting half the US navy in the Gulf as part of the per barrel price.

Yes, it's great the way Rex carves up the hypocrite green-bots. Of course, even if they were watching, they would not recognize themselves.

A note to those who think we should be concentrating our efforts on "alternative energy": give your heads a big shake. There is no alternative energy available today that can replace energy-dense, transportable liquid hydro-carbons without a huge reduction in everyone's standard of living. Listen up green-bots: high density energy from your reviled "tar sands" is required as a bridge to whatever "alternative energy" future you envision many, many years from now, if it even can be developed. How else are you going to get to your NGO-infested global warming gabfests half way around the world in your private jets? How else are you going to power your diesel buses across the country to preach to the rest of us sinners? How else are you going to achieve your nirvana of "social justice"?

My dream spot for Rex Murphy would be an afternoon double feature on CFRB talk radio, first teamed with Carol, replacing Paul Mott,and then with Stephen, replacing Michael Coren. By the time he was done both little Miss Sunshine and the Magpie would both be in tears along with most of the lefties who had called in.

Thanx Rex.

Make that a double.

Aw, Rex. If only CBC had more like you, I might actually watch it more often. However, I still wouldn't want to pay your wage with my taxes.

Would the mother planet not be better off with the removal of the oilsands? You cannot grow anything in the crud,it stinks, and even without any interference from humans the surrounding waters are polluted from the run-off. I think the faster that we can lance this boil ,the better off we will all be.

I worked up out a camp north of Fort MacKay, beyond "the bridge to nowhere" in the mid-90's. The muskeg swamp we were working on in that mid-winter contact had constant rainbow-sheens of oil whenever the surface of the ice was broken. The whole place smelled of diesel, and you could tell how far down the oil was in a given area by how big the (already stunted) pine trees would get before the tap root would hit the surface of the bitumen and the tree would die. The water within the local water table was unsafe for us to drink (by health codes) and could not be discharged directly from the ground into any river-accessable surface streams for fear of contaminating the "natural biosystem". The idea that the tar sands were sitting there benignly, having no impact on the local eco-system before mining started is totally wrong.

I had a chance to see Rex Murphy speak in Brandon, MB yesterday. I wasn't sure what to expect as I usually don't tune in to the CBC, but he was very good. I had to laugh as he started his speech out saying that he was glad he was in Brandon because the intellectual and hygienic climate was much better there then in Toronto. He went on to say that if he would have been at work at the CBC at that time he would have been watering the ferns and lighting the candles and incense around the shrine to David Suzuki.

I love this, it shows everybody that somebody down East "gets it" . It's fine to say don't mine or drill,but then HOW do you keep the lights on, your car driving, or maybe your house heated? With oil, that's what. Maybe Elizabeth May and Jack Layton could/should be made to watch this more than once until it sinks in. Thanks Rex .
Another Westerner from Saskatchewan.